1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to personal communication networks in general and, in specific, those that use a TV cable system as a transmission medium and where signals are sent using ATM compliant cell formats.
2. Description of Related Art
A significant portion of a long distance telephone bill is attributable to transfer payments required to be made by the long distance carrier to the local telephone companies at each end of the circuit. To reduce such fees for local interconnection, long distance inter-exchange carriers seek an alternative path to deliver signals from a subscriber's telephone directly to the long distance carrier switch thus bypassing local telephone companies facilities.
In the co-pending patent applications identified above in the Cross Reference section, ATM based communications systems are described wherein cordless terminal devices generate and utilize ATM compliant fast packet cells transmitted over TV cable and/or fiber optic pathways. In the cross-referenced patent applications cell based formats are used throughout. Starting at the user's terminal device, the cells are transmitted using cordless means, and thence over cable and fiber optic paths to reach area wide ATM networks for interconnection to the world's telephone systems.
It would be desirable to have a system that is consistent with the system described in the earlier cross-referenced patent applications, but creates an evolutionary path towards the eventual development of that system without requiring the full system configuration to be in place at the outset. The objective is to create an interim minimal system that can grow into the larger system containing the Directory Computer and interconnected ATM network described in the earlier referenced patent applications.